Much madness is divinest sense

Dickinson, Emily

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Annotated by:
Aull, Felice
Chen, Irene
  • Date of entry: May-07-2001

Summary

The narrator distinguishes between madness and sanity: the beliefs of the majority constitute sanity, whereas those who dissent are considered insane.

Commentary

For a modern, beautifully written, and absorbing elaboration of this idea, see Girl, Interrupted, an autobiographical account of psychiatric hospitalization, by Susanna Kaysen (Turtle Bay Books, Div. of Random House, New York, N.Y., 1993) (see this database).

Miscellaneous

First published: 1890

Primary Source

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

Publisher

Avenal

Place Published

New York

Edition

1982

Editor

Mabel Loomis Todd & T. W. Higginson